SPORT AND TRAVEL 145 



Mountains as early as possible in September, our stay 

 in Canada was necessarily brief. During our short 

 visit, however, we made many friends and saw 

 enough of the country and its most kind and hos- 

 pitable inhabitants to make us determine to revisit it 

 whenever circumstances should permit us to do so. 



Leaving Toronto on August 25, and travelling via 

 Chicago, the infant Hercules of the great cities 

 of the world, we reached Sheridan, Wyoming, on 

 August 29, and were driven out the same afternoon 

 to our friends' ranch near the little town of Bighorn. 

 During the drive we saw numbers of the so-called 

 "prairie dogs" (Cynomys htdovicianus] and quite 

 a dozen of the quaint and solemn little burrowing 

 owls (Speotyto cunicularis] which live and nest in 

 their burrows. These latter were always sitting just 

 at the mouth of one of the prairie dogs' holes. 

 Just before reaching Bighorn we passed a beaver 

 dam. There are several colonies of beavers in this 

 neighbourhood ; but these animals would probably have 

 long since ceased to exist in this part of America, had 

 they not been protected by the Government of the 

 State of Wyoming. This protection may possibly not 

 be extended to the beavers very much longer, as they 

 cause a good deal of trouble and expense to the 

 farmers through whose land the stream on which 

 they live happens to run, by damming it in such a 

 way as to interfere very materially with the necessary 

 work of irrigation. 



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